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Paperish Mess is excited to announce their February 13th art opening titled “Muddled Dreams” by local artist Kelly Parsell. Parsell is an interdisciplinary fine artist and the woman behind recent side-project Nerd Press paper goods and novelty gifts. Her artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Parsell’s work can be found in numerous libraries and collections, including those of Yale, Indiana, and Duke universities.

Through the process of gathering materials—collected objects from her own youth as well as those found in secondhand stores—Parsell finds comfort in and gives meaning to both savored and discarded remnants of adolescence, often attaching more worth to the objects then they originally held. By manipulating, reproducing, and appropriating stuffed animals, sleeping bags, and children’s books, Parsell blurs the lines of past and present, constructing a fuzzy world of contradictions and nostalgia for a past shared by her generation and gender. Parsell’s exhibit will be open February 13th through March 13th, 2015.

Celebratory libations and hors d’oeuvres will be served throughout the evening.

We’re so excited to be featuring work by over 100 independent artists and we’ll be continuing to evolve, grow, expand and add on to the current offerings as we go along. Please follow along with us on facebook and twitter for updates and monthly events!

Hey all! We are SO excited to announce our 2-Year Anniversary Party on Small Business Saturday, November 29th, 2014 from 6-10pm!

The celebration will feature an Etsy Trunkshow with local artists iamhome and art gallery opening titled “Cut Away: an aesthetic dissection of scientific methods” with featured artists Katie Vota and Heather Beardsley. The event will also take place in conjunction with After Hours on Chicago Avenue, a monthly neighborhood wide event featuring over 25 participating independent businesses.

Celebratory libations and hors d’oeuvres will be provided throughout the evening.

iamhome will be debuting brand new functional home decor products, as well as featuring their best selling Original Chalkboard Skulls, wall artwork, fantastical trophies and more!

Please see below for more details about all of the night’s featured artists.

ABOUT iamhome:

iamhome strives to make colorful, imaginative and playful objects and decor that will reside in your home and be that thing you cannot look at without smiling. The husband-and-wife team behind iamhome fell in love within moments of meeting each other in an art store in Chicago ten years ago. They currently never leave each others side. Over the last five years they have grown from a few products into working with design firms on large projects, working one on one with customers on countless numbers of custom projects and expanding their ever increasing line of exciting products.

ABOUT Katie Vota & Heather Beardsley:

Katie Vota and Heather Beardsley’s work explores the intersections of art and science, two of the largest influences on culture today, using one of the most ubiquitous materials: paper. These bodies of work play with the audience’s expectations for both disciplines as colors are depicted without pigment and reference books are rendered unintelligible. Although these pieces share a similar language of intricate cutwork, the artists apply them to opposite ends.

Like two sides of the same coin, Katie’s work is about tracing the coloration the eye sees through the subatomic structure of its source, while Heather’s work draws the viewer into a world within their bodies that normally remains unseen. Pairing these works together creates a dialogue about the power, but also the limitations of human perception, an incongruity enhanced by the contrast in the ways we’ve chosen to display our cut paper works. Heather’s cutwork is embedded in found textbooks, art hidden within the confines of science and although Katie’s cut-paper drawings are sourced from micrographs they are stripped of their original content, as science is transformed into an art object. Combined, the artist duo demonstrates the complexity, nuance and conditional nature of dealing with these themes.

We hope to see you on Small Business Saturday for the Paperish Mess 2-Year Anniversary Party, Art Opening with Heather Beardsley and Katie Vota and Etsy Trunk Show featuring local artists iamhome!

Paperish Mess, located in Ukrainian Village, is excited to host Rattle The Cage, Kinetic Installations by Jonah Ortiz as part of Chicago Artists Month 2014, the 19th annual celebration of Chicago’s vibrant art community presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The event will also take place in conjunction with the West Town Art Walk. Please join us on Oct. 3rd, 2014 from 5-10pm and Oct. 4th from 11am-10pm and experience Jonah’s collection of installations and 3D creations.

Opening night (Oct 3rd) will also include live music by local musicians, The Oarsman. Celebratory libations and hors d’oeuvres will be provided throughout the evening.

Jonah Ortiz’s work is a complex blend of high and low-brow pop-media references, coupled with a subtext of analogies to personal stories.Grounded in concept and wild in form, his work plays on noise and color to create an aesthetic style which offends the senses and challenges the mind. Using familiar games and toys as rudimentary models, the artwork aims to bridge the gap between the creativity of childhood, and the reality of adulthood. The ironic message behind each piece is partially derived from personal experience, but the all-inclusive style of the work allows for a unique experience no matter what level of fluency one has in the art world.

Event Title: Rattle the Cage, Kinetic Installations by Jonah Ortiz and LIVE MUSIC from the Oarsman

We’re happy to announce, in collaboration with the West Town Chamber of Commerce, that over 15 local businesses along West Town’s Chicago Avenue corridor will bekicking off their monthly summer event, After Hours on Chicago Avenue. This is a brand new initiative and will launch on June 27th, 2014 from 6-9pm.On the last Friday of every month, community businesses will open their doors after hours and offer exclusive promotions, sales and complimentary refreshments.

After Hours on Chicago Ave was formed as a group effort to encourage the community to discover all of the great new and established businesses in the neighborhood. Summer dates include June 27th, July 25th, and Aug 29th, 2014.

To celebrate the opening of the month-long installation, we’ll have complimentary drinks and libations on hand throughout the evening! This will be our last show until Spring, so we hope you’ll join us, hang out and enjoy sweet artwork by this *absolutely* fantastic artist!

Artist Statement from Ilyana Schwartz:

This work explores pattern, mark, and shape making
through the medium of woodblock prints. I am drawn
to how the harsh lines of the wood and the sectioned
patterns can depict emotion on a human face. It is for
this reason that I originally chose to make portraits. As I
began my process of carving people, my work ultimately
took the form of a crowd.

Please join us at the opening reception for “Urban Perspectives” featuring the work of Chicago-based artist, Tim Jarosz on Saturday, December 7th from 7-11pm. We’ve loved Tim’s work for so long now and we’re thrilled to feature a large collection coming up THIS Saturday, Dec. 7th for the month of December. Included in the show are brand new pieces, large-scale works and everything in between! Complimentary libations will be on-hand from the amazing Allagash Brewing as well! Seriously delish and sure to make it a great night.

More from Tim Jarosz:

The Work.

Overall, I would say my work can be described as “Gritty digital urban landscape collages”. It’s a bit of a long process, even though sometimes my artwork only takes a few hours to create. It pretty much always starts with photography. Shooting lots of photos, mostly street photography. It then moves to digitally editing and collaging those photographs together and then adding my own color and texture treatments. I wouldn’t be able to create my style of work if I didn’t use photography and design equally. For me, they go hand in hand and both are a crucial part of what I call art.

The Process.

The process I use to print my work is called Sublimation printing. It’s basically a two-part printing process that includes printing my work out with special inks on paper and then heat pressing the image into the material it is mounted on. This process is what gives the work that super glossy look. The images are printed on chromalux wood board, similar in style to masonite, but with a beautiful glossy finish.

To celebrate supporting local and indie businesses this Small Business Saturday, we are hosting a get-together THIS SATURDAY afternoon with mobile vintage shop, Lost Girls Vintage and Chicago Avenue Salon at Paperish Mess. So much handmade and vintage goodness will be on hand and select items in the shop will be 10-25% OFF! Swing by for cocktails, a pop-up photo booth with one of our fave photographers Staci Cilantro, AND get the cutest vintage-y braids and 5 minute up-do’s for FREE all day long at the shop, compliments of the lovely Chicago Ave Salon! We hope you’ll join us and shop small! Support three businesses in one this upcoming Small Business Saturday– actually, we have now have 100 artists featured here at Paperish Mess, so really it’s like supporting 103 businesses in one! YAY!

We’re thrilled to announce our One Year Anniversary Gathering! YAY for ONE YEAR! We could NOT have done it without you guys and we can’t thank you enough for all of your love and support over these past 12 months. The event will feature the opening reception for “Emotional Likeness” featuring the work of Chicago-based artist Matt Wojtan and EP Release Party for Chicago electronic/experimental musician Space Cubs on Saturday, November 9th from 7:00pm-11:00pm.

In celebration of Paperish Mess’ One Year Anniversary, complimentary drinks and snacks will be provided throughout the evening! ALSO, these:

-The first 20 purchases over $40 will get to choose their FREE pick from a specially curated selection of artwork, jewelry and handmade goods.

-Most importantly though, 10% of every purchase that night will go to Esperanza Community Services, a local Chicago (West Town) organization focusing on the arts, music, education and vocational training for children and adults with developmental disabilities.

About Matt Wojtan:
Matt Wojtan’s quest to represent what he sees has led to another beast entirely. As humans, we discuss everything from friends, strangers, family and people we distrust. Wojtan continues this conversation through illustration, paint and colored pencil. The artist has studied the city of Chicago greatly through a mix of life drawing and candid photo reference. The artist’s passion no longer thrives on capturing a physical likeness, but an emotional one.

About Space Cubs:
The event will also feature the release of Space Cubs’ EP Release titled Come Forth, Die Down. Space Cubs is the one-woman moniker of Suzanne Bonifacio, a recent transplant to Chicago, IL. Bonifacio floats effortlessly between distinct vocal melodies and instrumental sound-scapes, while drawing inspiration from names such as Bjork, Boards of Canada, Kate Bush, Junior Boys and Aphex Twin.

SHORTCOMINGS OF COIN, New Visual Works by Ian “hydEON” Ferguson is part of Chicago Artists Month 2013, the 18th annual celebration of Chicago’s vibrant art community presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Ferguson’s series of work focuses on the emotional hardships of being suppressed in a labor intensive fast food service industry. $0 Tip on $800 order for party of 30. The never-ending financial struggles of life in a world engulfed in greed, unnecessary plastic bags, crumbling healthcare systems, depressing human services, and existing in the endlessly looming poverty line. The artist explores these experiences in vivid depictions of the struggles, dealing with them, overcoming them, and rising above to succeed in bigger dreams. Focusing on a deeper existence, one that is in more of a spiritual realm of consciousness rather than one that is rooted in the pregnant wealth of commerce.

We’re so excited to host the Official Release Party for a new phone app put out by Buy Art Not People, a Chicago-based arts and awareness group focusing on raising awareness and resources to combat modern day slavery, aka. human trafficking. Join us Sunday, October 27th from 6-9 pm– there will be gadgets available to explore the app, celebratory refreshments provided and live music by Detroit band, Andy and the Pandys.

The app will be used to spread awareness about human trafficking through links to anti-trafficking resources, providing the ability to submit trafficking tips and research instances of trafficking and abuse in a given neighborhood or area of Chicago, and to share images of artwork as well as info about arts-related events in the city to network with other social justice-minded artists.